Good read and very informative. I personally have always found the idea of training in CACC appealling.

Not to take away from your experiences and opinions -

But if im not mistaken, was there not alot of controversy regarding kris and the claims that he was making regarding catch wrestling? - from what i can vaguely remember reading, it was linage related or instructor related.

When kris comes over you should come along, he will show you the techniques he uses to make opponents carry his weight throughout the roll, it's quite an eye opener how it achieved, at one point kris had me in a scarf hold and showed me how to get a tap just using the position! Awesome mate!

I trained in bjj for just over 4 years, after 3 years mainly focused on no gi though.

The main differences between rolling with a catch guy and a bjj guy were:

1. Very difficult to attack from the guard(s) just about all the guys were very good at neutralising most of the attacks, they did this through using their bodyweight more effectively, maintaining proper posture and a good use of wrist/control.

2. The use of "rips" or pain compliance to deter you from moving through certain positions, for example, trying to place the shin across the belly to recover closed guard usually resulted in a painful shin ride or even worse a toe hold, after being daunt with see a few times you really felt weary of trying to recover guard in this manner.

3. "take the slack out of it!" was something kris emphasised when putting on joint locks, things like the top wrist locks (Americana) or the double wrist lock (kimura) we way tighter!!!! They have a different way of gripping the wrist and hand and add a small twist to the movement to tighten all the locks, you are literally tapping as they are going on!

4. They tend to "ride" an opponent as opposed to simply lying on them to maintain position, being on the bottom position literally sucks! You find it very difficult to concentrate on mounting any kind oaf offense as you cant breathe! Just relentless pressure all the time.

5. Generally a wider choice of submissions, as they employ the use of more neck cranks, bicep/calf slicers, etc. There were some definite improvements to my whole leg lock game, from set ups to actual execution.

6. The whole approach to takedowns, they set them up really well from the clinch as opposed to telegraphing a shot, most of the CACC throws are painful as your being thrown, let alone the landing!

These are just a few things that stuck in my head from my experience rolling with them....